Are We Becoming More Creative from Technology?

The constant research and subsequent discoveries in the field of technology has made an illusion to some that creativity is no longer something that should be respected. These people have become less creative by deciding to profit from exploiting others' creativities, instead of actually developing and utilizing their own. For instance, the copyright infringement issues has become much more severe with the wide prevalence of internet because people sometimes scan their hardcover or paper books and upload them to file hosting servers, or decide to upload the purchased E-books on Ebay or Amazon with the intention of producing lucrative results.

Until the development of technology, it was more difficult to become less creative. Plagiarizing other works required considerate amount of efforts from the individuals by hand. But now, the technology has made people to become complacent on being less creative, thanks to that easy one-click of copying and pasting other people's works on the internet.

Yet, people should not remain in despair that the technology has only brought our society a negative outcome. In many other cases, the efforts by various individuals allowed others to build their creativity by providing the necessary knowledge for it.

For instance, universities and colleges, including MIT, UC Berkeley, and Yale University, have developed websites with devices called "podcasts" or "open courseware," which are either audio or visual recording of their lectures. Also, the wide increase in the uses of YouTube allowed websites like Khan Academy, a recognized website for producing videos in biology, chemistry, mathematics, and finance, to provide education to those who otherwise can't. Moreover, nearly all the prominent newspaper companies in the United States have online version of their paper copy that allow some or all of their content to be viewed by everyone in the globe for free. All of these websites provide the necessary knowledge for one to build creativity. This is different from the past, when education was more viewed as a "privilege" to those who attended colleges, and many discoveries that stemmed from creativity often came from those who had gone to schools. Now, everyone with some motivation can build and develop their creativity to make a difference in the world.

The main factor on determining whether technology causes us to be less or more creative is on the action. If an action of an individual reflects the creativity of that person, then it can be justified that the new developments in technology caused that creativity. If no action was done by the individual, then the development did not make people anymore creative than before. Now, it must be emphasized on what this "action" consists of.

"Action," in this sense, refers to expansion of existing knowledge into another level or a different angle. Taking someone's work and using as one's own does not constitute as an "action" as there was no "expansion." On the other hand, if an individual read through the online versions of New York Times Health Section and UC Berkeley's Biology Podcast to come up with his own idea about the current status of cancer research, this may be considered an "action" because it "expanded" the individual's mind.

This way of thinking about action and creativity is justified because the term "creativity" should not be really called "creativity" until proofs and evidences of the idea are laid out, and obviously, to do this, "action" must be done first. After all, we can all say that we are creative enough to build Facebook like Mark Zuckerberg. But, saying that we are creative and actually being creative are two very different things.

In my opinion, it, therefore, is improper to judge if something - developments in technology in this case - led to an increase in creativity without assessing the subsequent "action" and analyzing the evidences on the quality of this "action." In the example of the individual who presented his own views about the current status of cancer research, his view is just considered as an "action" until the scientific community discovers something that was not found in the previous studies, which will then lead him to call his view as "creative." But, if the scientific community finds that his view is nothing new, then we cannot say that the student was creative in that matter since nothing new was introduced. Hence, it is fair to say that seeing someone to act and state an unique belief based on the knowledge gained from the technology sufficiently shows that an individual became more "creative."